If Congress Won’t Stop Rogue Judges, The DOJ Should Prosecute Them
Samuel Kimzey
Any successful means of getting rid of or reducing the power of the judges will require breaking precedents and norms.
It is increasingly clear that judges are a significant bottleneck within the current legal system, with the potential to obstruct many of the most urgently needed reforms in our country.
In an egregious example, former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was recently convicted of felony obstruction after she actually attempted to aid an illegal alien (charged with battery) to escape ICE agents. Thankfully, her efforts were thwarted, and she was prosecuted for obstruction of justice. Despite being convicted, the federal judge presiding over the cases, Lynn Adelman, only sentenced Dugan to a $5,000 fine and no prison time. Dugan has resigned from her judicial office, but it is frustrating that so little repercussion has followed her gross abuse of judicial office.
Or consider how, after being repeatedly released by local judges, DeCarlos Brown brutally murdered Iryna Zarutska in August 2025, but is now determined by a federal judge to be “incompetent to stand trial.” Such examples of judges corrupting justice could be multiplied endlessly.
At every turn, the abuse of the judicial office is one of the most flagrant injustices and one of the most stalwart impediments to necessary reforms. Almost every problem runs through the bottleneck of the judges, given that in our current system, we elect the executive to enforce the laws, but the actual trials and sentencing will be presided over by state or federal judges.
Unless we can control or change the judges, we will not be able to truly restore our communities with much-needed law enforcement, criminal punishments, and accountability.
The Problem with Impeachment
It is a common refrain among right-wing figures in media to talk about the need to “impeach the judges.” In an encouraging step, Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier recently led the way by filing articles of impeachment against Miami Judge Miguel De La O, who let a black woman walk free because of an alleged “psychotic break,” despite her having drowned her baby and stabbed other family members.
As is the case in most states, the impeachment process involves articles of impeachment being filed in the House of the state legislature. Impeachment (essentially an indictment for “misdemeanor in office”) requires simply a majority vote, but typically the other house (i.e., Senate) must vote to actually achieve removal, which usually requires a two-thirds majority. This is why impeachment will prove such a difficult path to take, given that most state legislatures do not possess such overwhelming Republican majorities in the upper house. In blue states, it will not be possible to impeach the judges, and even in red states, it will be very difficult to actually get corrupt judges removed this way.
The same problem applies to federal judges, who could be impeached by Congress. Despite federal judges grossly abusing their offices by making up all kinds of illogical, inconsistent, and unconstitutional justifications to stop actions taken by the Trump administration — and despite these judges’ rulings often being overturned by the higher courts — it will prove very difficult to remove them. It would require a majority vote in the House to impeach, which would require all the Republicans voting together, and a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate, which is effectively impossible any time soon.